


"I'm Fine, Everything's Fine."

by WKR8lateintheevening



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Forgiveness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Slytherin Harry Potter, Voldemort is Body Horror Incarnate, catastrophizing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28461975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WKR8lateintheevening/pseuds/WKR8lateintheevening
Summary: In a world where his introduction to the Wizarding World was brutal rather than wondrous, a traumatized and anxious Harry enters Hogwarts with one ambition: Find a way to get rid of his magic.Of course, there's no way he can tell anybody that, who knows what they'd do to him then.Things get harder when he's sorted into the house of the monster who killed his parents and his cult of fascists. But there's no way he's giving up on his dream, not now, he'll power through it, build his walls high and keep them from seeing his fear.Easier said than done.In which Harry Potter is afraid of magic, makes assumptions, and tries to keep it together. Ron and Hermione are still great friends, not all Slytherins are bad, people are guilty and, in the shadows, Voldemort is evolving into something else entirely.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	1. A Matter of Pride

Ever since he’d been a toddler, Harry Potter had wished that the Dursley’s would shut up and leave him in peace- even if it was only for a day.

It was near the top of his long list of favorite daydream scenarios: They’d start in on him because he’d singed the bacon or not finished his chores on time, Vernon would roar and get up in his face, his own all purple, and then a superhero or a dragon or something else would come crashing through the wall and knock the big man out with a single blow.

Or Petunia would snarl at him for doing something “freaky” and tell him to get in the cupboard, only, as she was winding up to yell or hit, he’d grow and she’d shrink. Then he’d get in her face and yell about how awful she’d been, then he’d lift _her_ up by the collar and throw her into the cupboard.

He could count the days he’d had without angry shouting, nasty insults or whispered threats on one hand. Nothing was good enough for them and he honestly didn’t think that would ever change.

His fantasies were some of the only things that kept him sane some days. It was a shame that they’d all lose their bite after today, honestly, he wondered why he even bothered daydreaming at all if he was going to end up getting the worst version of what he’d been hoping for.

It was Dudley’s 10th birthday. They were supposed to go away on a trip to a little town that sat near Smeltings. Vernon had been regaining his son with stories of the “fun” he’d used to have there since he’d been in diapers, so of course, Dudley had demanded to visit every year, and every year there had been something keeping them back until now.

So, obviously, the sudden need for them to take Harry along had put him right at the top of everyone’s Fecal Roster.

It hadn’t been his fault that Mrs. Figg was too sick to watch him and Aunt Marge was off in Scotland doing something dog-related, and it was Aunt Petunia’s fault that no-one else in the area trusted him enough to babysit.

He’d told them, as politely as he could, that he would be fine on his own, that he’d keep to himself, do his chores and spend the rest of the time in the cupboard.

But Vernon wasn’t having any of it, “Not a bloody chance, boy. I’ll not have you running around doing god-knows-what while we’re celebrating. No, you’ll come with,” and here he had leaned in until Harry had been able to smell the coffee on his breath, “but you are to be quiet, that means no whining, no whinging and no freaky stuff. Are we understood?”

Harry, knowing from the gleam in the man’s beady eyes that any disobedience would be met with worse-than-usual punishment, had nodded and allowed himself to be shoved into the car.

That had been half an hour ago, and now Harry was squashed between the deceptively unforgiving bulk of Dudley and the bony, mercilessly poking fingers of Piers Polkiss, who had been before and was more than happy to show Dudley the way around.

Harry had tried to relax, but the tension was so thick that he felt like he was in a sauna, and the sheer anger radiating off Dudley promised a really nasty round of Harry Hunting when they got out, so he’d given in and tensed up as they drew closer.

By noon the town came into view, nestled in a barren, windy valley, looking as grey and dreary as he expected it to be.

 _This place looks like vampires live there_. He thought as they passed through a covered bridge and out into the town proper. Dudley- who had started to come out of his shell- looked out and exclaimed, “Blimey, this place is huge!”

Harry thought that he detected a note of disappointment in his cousin’s tone, but Vernon definitely hadn’t, because he puffed up and said, “You have no idea, my boy! I can’t count how many hours me and the boys spent just roaming these streets…”

Harry turned to look out the window and tuned his uncle out as the man began to bluster on about the same things he’d heard a million times before. They were dangerously close to the town center where they’d be parking. Harry tensed and looked up at Piers, who grinned nastily at him and winked.

 _Damnit._ He thought eloquently, his heart rate beginning to pick up.

Dudley had been waiting for a chance to vent his frustrations at his having to come along. Not only would the pummeling be worse than usual if Dudley caught him, but he was by himself in totally unfamiliar terrain.

 _But Vernon_ did _say this palace was big. There’s probably plenty of places to hide._ He tried to reason, only to remember that Dudley had been brought up on stories of this place AND Piers had been before, and what would happen if he got lost?

The images of what Vernon would do to him if he was forced to track him down were enough to make his stomach clench. The man had only ever hit him twice in his life, but they’d been bad enough for him to want to avoid it if at all possible.

The car lurched to a stop at the curb, the clicks of the seatbelts unbuckling was deafening in the silence.

“We’re here!” said Vernon with a beaming smile. Petunia sighed and got out, muttering about “looking for that blasted bookstore” and Vernon followed his wife’s lead. The instant the door had slammed shut Dudley leaned in and said, in a chillingly good imitation of his father, “Don’t worry, freak, we’ll give you a head start.”

Harry was out the door and down the sidewalk before the last syllable could die on the air.

***

Harry had managed to avoid the two for half an hour, a record that he held absolutely no pride in. He was currently crouched in the shadows beneath a little metal bridge- part of the dreary excuse of a playground that sat right in the middle of the park.

It was a bad spot, he didn’t have a good view of his surroundings, the shadows were deep, and the tallest trees and most strategically viable buildings to hide in seemed very far away.

Dudley and Piers had passed by this way twice now, and they’d gotten closer each time.

 _Maybe they know and they’re just waiting me out. Why are they like this? Why am I like this?_ He shook his head, exasperated. _I feel like I’m at war, but all they’re gonna do is beat me up, it’s not that serious, and it’s getting late. I should just go out and let ‘em, better them than Vernon._

Sighing softly, his mind made up, he steeled himself, straightened out, turned to go give himself up so he could get on with his day, and stopped short.

There was a man standing there, not five feet from him. Very tall and willowy, his clothes- which looked very expensive and also very old- hung off of him like a scarecrow, and his arms dangled limply at his sides, his pale hands stark against the dull gray of his frayed sleeves and the black of his robes.

“U-Uhm...I’m sorry for bumping into you?” Harry offered, unsure of what else to say. He wanted to run, the man was staring at him in a way that was hard to palace, but which made his skin crawl all the same.

A cold breeze blew past, making the man’s robes flap about him and stirring a mop of brown hair that framed a pale, pockmarked face. The man sneered at him with a thin, cruel-looking mouth and said, in a soft voice, “You’re Harry Potter.”

That hadn’t sounded like a question. Harry felt something in his chest tighten.

His schooling had never been anything more than acceptable, but he remembered all those Stranger Danger videos that they’d had to watch, and this encounter was rapidly ticking off all those boxes.

Thinking quickly he shook his head, “No, sir, I’m sorry. Y-you must be looking for someone else.”

The man smiled, wide and yellow, “Lying to an elder, eh?” he tutted, amusement glinting in his eyes, “Very rude, boy. Very, very rude. But what would one expect from a Potter, bet you’d be among the Gryffs, bet you anything, like your worthless, arrogant father and your filthy, stinking mudblood of a mother.”

Those last words tore through him like a bolt of lightning. What was he talking about? Did he know his parents? Was he also some drunk like Petunia said they were? He’d heard that long years of heavy drinking could make you crazy, but then what was all that nonsense about griffons? Had his parents been in a gang, was that why Petunia hated her sister so much?

And what did that word- “mudblood”- mean? It sounded like a racial slur, but not one he’d ever heard. Regardless of what it meant it still sent a spike of anger through his chest, he’d never known his parents, but that didn’t make it any less upsetting. His hands curled into fists at his side.

The man seemed to notice the sudden heat behind the boy’s gaze because he chuckled and shook his head, “You have their temper, little Harry Potter, a bad, unbecoming temper suited to lower class animals.”

The hatred in the man’s tone was shocking, and all at once, Harry became very aware that he was a 10 year old facing a grown man who most likely meant him harm. He suddenly felt very small and

“I...I have no idea what you’re talking about.” he tried to keep his voice level, but he knew he was failing.“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, s-sir, but I need to go home, my parents are looking for me and-”

“Your parents are dead, brat!” roared the man, his face reddening, “They died and left all of us without our lord! I had to simmer in Azkaban for two weeks before they let me out, my family name was almost ruined, all because you didn’t have the decency to die in your crib!”

Something whizzed past Harry’s head, a mere inch from his ear, it was a little rock and it struck the man in the forehead before either of them had any time to react.

“Whatcha doin’, Freak?”

Harry started and looked back. He hadn’t heard Dudley and Piers come up behind him. His cousin was sneering, but Piers’ normally snide expression was absent, in fact, he looked weirdly unsettled, which did nothing to reassure Harry.

The man, who had been standing slack-jawed, staring at the thin smear of blood on his fingers from where the rock had broken the skin, turned his gaze away from Harry and focused on the two boys behind him.

“You...you...” he spluttered, his face going grey as a muscle began to spasm beneath his left eye. “You...you…”.

Dudley, who had never been on the end of an adult’s genuine anger before in his life and had spent way too much time around wannabe thugs, snorted a laugh, and that’s what set the man in motion.

With a howl his hand snapped out, Harry had just enough time to see that he was holding what looked like a long, thin stick before a calloused hand pushed him roughly aside.

There was a flash of green light, a moment when it seemed like someone had shut the sound off on the world, then he heard a dull thud, and Dudley started to scream.

Harry scrambled to his feet and turned, his heart hammering in his chest. Piers was sprawled on the ground, unmoving, his eyes wide open and unseeing. Dudley stood rooted to the spot, a dark patch spreading between his legs, his face was red and there were tears streaming down his cheeks.

It was like time had stopped for Harry. He sat rooted to the spot, unable to fully parse what he was seeing, only taking in those dead eyes looking out at nothing. His mind was a jumble, the world was blurring around the edges and there was a pressure building inside of his head that demanded to be released.

_He can’t be dead, he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead, there was no gunshot, you can’t kill someone with a stick, he didn’t stab him, how is he dead? He must be asleep, but **why isn’t he blinking?!**_

Huffing like he’d run a marathon, the man in the robes turned towards Harry and Dudley. His eyes were wild and there were veins jumping and bucking beneath the skin of his forehead.

He said something, his mouth moving contemptuously, but Harry didn’t hear him, he couldn’t, that pressure had reached his ears, pulsing behind his eardrums to the tune of his heart. He could still see, though, and he saw the man raise the stick and point it at his chest.

A beam of light, a nasty yellow-purple, like a bruise, shot out from its pointed tip and sped at him like a comet.

It struck him and his world erupted into a kind of pain that he had never felt before. His muscles tensed as one, bending and rippling and tugging around bones that were hot and cold like they had a fever. It felt like a full body cramp times a hundred.

The pressure was behind his eyes now, his vision swam and went red. Something- no, several somethings snapped inside of him, he retched and his back arched.

The pain built and built until he felt like the air was white hot, then whatever it was stopped and he crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap.

The world was spinning, the pain sang in his body. He felt like he was being wrung out and squeezed at the same time, he could feel his bones bending and grinding together in places. 

Then, just as it had become unbearable, some of the pressure let up and a bit of awareness returned to him in a burst. He felt like he’d been pulled apart, there was blood in his mouth and he couldn’t stop shaking, but he could see again.

Dudley’s screams had drawn the man’s attention and now he was looking at him like he was something to be stepped on, his pale lips curled in a sneer, his eyes narrowed, his delicate fingers tapping at the stick.

“Muggle swine.” he hissed, “They’ll not care if I have a little extra fun. Did you know that the Nott family used to hunt your kind like dogs?” He said this with savage amusement, a smile splitting his face.

No, no, no. The words repeated in his mind as he realized what was about to happen.

Harry had never loved his cousin, had never even liked him, in his mind, Dudley was just a bully, not family, never family.

But if he stood there and watched and did nothing, then his life would get so much worse than it had been up until now, he couldn’t imagine what Petunia and Vernon would do to him for letting their son die. Not that there wouldn’t be serious repercussions after today, but he had to try anyway.

With the pressure building up again, Harry clambered to his feet, his body shook like he’d been out in the cold for hours, but he forced himself to move through it.

He saw the man turn, saw his face twist up in surprise before he was past him. He didn’t know what he was doing, not completely, all he could think of was _I need to get Dudley and me out of here, right now._

He leaped forwards, grabbed the front of Dudley’s shirt with hands that didn’t look quite right, and **_pushed_**.

All at once the world spun and blurred around them, there was a not-so-gentle tugging somewhere around his navel, then a feeling of weightlessness- like the downturn on a steep sleep-and then they were sprawling on cold pavement.

He had no idea how he’d done it, he knew that it was something freaky, though, but right now he didn’t have the energy to care.

Nearby somebody gasped, then someone else shouted. There was a rush of feet on stone and then he was being turned over by hesitant hands. The sky above him was grey like dirty dishwater, the sun was right over him, but he couldn’t feel its heat through the miserable English cold.

Nearby Dudley was shuddering and whimpering, Harry wanted to see if he was okay, but the muscles of his neck were clenched so tightly he wondered how he could still swallow. The pain was coming back to him, gaining in intensity with every breath he took, his hands, knees, legs, and elbows all felt broken in some way he couldn’t understand and scalding hot.

There was a strange popping sound, followed by an even louder commotion, then a face came into view, a woman with dark hair and a terrified expression.

“Kid, kid, stay with me. Can you tell me what happened?”

He tried to speak, but all he managed was a ragged gasp as his lungs spasmed behind his agonized ribs. The woman cursed softly, and then her hair did something unexpected: It changed color from black to grey.

 _There are more?_ He thought dazedly, horrified at the idea, but too tired to think on anything further. He slipped into unconsciousness a moment later and found himself hoping that things would be back to normal when he woke up.


	2. Cannot Be Undone.

Harry wasn’t awake, but he wasn’t asleep either, there was too much pain seething inside him, pain and something else, something he didn’t want to name, even though he thought he knew what it was. Time stretched on and on, and consciousness ebbed and flowed, carrying him with it.

The first ebb left him hearing indistinct voices muttering words in what sounded like Latin. For a moment or a minute he thought he was hearing angels arguing where to send him, then he went under.

The next kept him blind, but now he could hear better. The voices were speaking English now.

“-don’t understand, why didn’t it work?”

“ No clue, must be a new one.”

“Merlin’s beard. Maybe we should get Croaker in on this.”

“Good idea. Floo’s open.”

“What’s that, around his belly?”

“I don’t-”

Their conversation was interrupted by a violent surge of pain that dragged him into wakefulness. The agony was all-encompassing, a frantic kind of pain that made him flail and look everywhere, anywhere to see what was wrong. He caught glimpses of white tile, of people in white and dark robes, of an old fashioned record player, and finally of deep, wet gashes splitting his arms and hands.

He screamed, he knew he did, he could feel it thrumming in his throat, but he couldn’t hear it. Something, a glass cabinet, exploded, something below him flashed with bright yellow light, then a woman pointed a stick at him, shouted a word he didn't understand, and sent him into the deepest sleep he’d ever experienced.

The ebbs were shorter for a while after that, more indistinct. There was still pain, and sometimes someone wept nearby- or was it him?- but there was so much less for a while.

The third time was the longest and the last. He was somewhere else, somewhere warm, and the worst of the pain had been pushed to his legs and stomach. Aside from that, he felt odd, disconnected, like he’d been out of surgery, which he decided must’ve been the case, though he couldn’t muddle through much else.

He’d started to drift away again when he heard someone speak.

“We need to Obliviate the boy and the Muggles.” 

The voice was feminine, high pitched, and clearly frustrated.

“Not until this curse is broken.” said another person: A man with a raspy voice who sounded very tired, and about to run out of patience..

“The longer we wait, the harder it will be to make the spell stick.” said yet another man, this one with a posh-sounding voice, like the royalty in those old Robin Hood movies that his aunt and uncle used to watch all the time.

The first man sighed, exasperated, “Harry’s stomach ruptured last night, Mr. Malfoy. We’re still dealing with that. It’ll be a few days more before we can even _think_ of Obliviating them, and that’s _if_ we can get his body back to normal.” 

“It can’t be _that_ bad.” scoffed the woman, sounding a bit like Dudley to Harry’s dazed mind.

Something slid across his body, then the cold started to creep in. The woman muttered a few words that he was sure were bad, someone sighed deeply, and then the blessed warmth returned.

“We’ll...get back to you,” said Mr. Malfoy, now sounding put out.

“I look forward to it.” said the first man, the sarcasm so thick on his tongue that even in the state he was in Harry could hear it.

There was silence after, a long stretch of it where the pain in his guts and his joints, and the thoughts forming in his still-addled brain were his only company. Then the deeper sleep came and dragged him back under.

  
  


***

  
  


If someone had told Petunia Dursley that she would be spending the week after her son’s birthday in the most prestigious magical hospital in all of England she would have scoffed at them, and then promptly gone home and gotten her family the hell out of England as quickly and quietly as she could. 

Now, though, now she sat on an old wooden chair, staring out at the comings and goings and emergencies of the very people she’d told herself that she’d hated- that she _had_ hated ever since Lily had gotten into that damned school- and felt nothing.

There was a man across from her with teeth like a sabercat and next to him was a witch looking worriedly down at a baby whose skin kept changing color with every breath. 

She could’ve reached out and touched them, or been touched by them, the Petunia of a week ago would have had a heart attack at the mere sight of the insanity around her.

But that Petunia wouldn’t have felt as torn as she did now.

They’d cleared Dudley two days ago, he and Vernon were at the Leaky Cauldron (Some part of her still recoiled at the idea) in a private room with Auror guards nearby. 

They’d been _very_ insistent that they stay in magical territory while they looked things over, apparently, someone had broken into her house while they’d been away and that had been enough to quell any arguments she might’ve had.

Her mind was racing. Anger and grief, fear and disgust, worry and guilt, they all whirled about in her head, crowding and building until she felt like her head would burst from the pressure. 

The way her husband and son were acting didn’t make it any better: Vernon, normally her rock, had become a ball of nervous energy, pacing and vacillating between apoplectic rage and profound worry for their situation, while Dudley had gone still and silent, turning his head away from food and rarely leaving his bed unless it was to use the bathroom, from which he often returned with red, puffy eyes.

She hadn’t known what to do with either of them, After those first few nights, Dudley had closed himself off completely, and no amount of coddling or threatening would get him to budge up, and a part of her was worried what she might say and what he might do if her temper got the better of her.

That’s why she was here, at St. Mungos, surrounded by wizards with the most outlandish and baffling maladies, waiting outside her nephew’s room.

She’d wanted to go in right away, she’d told herself that she’d march in there, see how the boy was doing and tell him off for putting her family in danger. Except that her feet wouldn't obey her, and the thoughts that were screaming at her were too heavy, too important to ignore.

And that was why she was currently sitting on a rickety wooden chair, staring at the strange world around her with suspicion and interest, for the second day in a row, thinking.

_What would I say to the boy? “Thank you for saving my son?”, he’s the one who brought that lunatic to him!_

_But that was because we took him with us. That old bastard told me that there were protections around the house, we should have left him, cut the trip short so we could get back in time, if he’d have used magic, then he’d have used magic._

_If he had been there, though, then whoever got in might've killed him. And then what would I do? I hate...I thought I did...I did...do I now? Would I be able to look at myself in the mirror without seeing him?_

_That lunatic made Harry suffer, but he didn’t kill him. If I got a child tortured to death or whatever else they might’ve done, then could I really call myself a mother? They’d all look at me, all those other biddies, and they’d smile at me, and then they’d turn and tell each other that_ they _wouldn’t leave a kid to get butchered in their home._

_No matter that they wouldn’t give a damn about Harry as a person, they’d all thought he was some worthless hoodlum._

_And whose fault is that?_

Her nails were sharp against her palm, the red nail polish flaking as she clenched her jaw. A passing mediwitch regarded her worriedly and the people opposite her were staring at her, but she didn’t see them.

_Why do I act like this?_

_Because it made me happy, to spite her, to tell her that I won, that I settled into a normal life, that I made it despite what they said to me, how I knew she was always better, that she lived in the kind of world I always dreamed about and I got left behind._

_All my dreams left me behind._

Petunia stood abruptly, the man with the fangs and the woman with the color-changing baby both looked up, startled. She didn’t apologize, she just turned with a frustrated huff and, letting her frustration give her courage, she marched through the door and into Harry’s room.

She saw herself striding down the rows and seeing if he was awake and, if he was, talking to him, though she wasn’t sure what she’d say.

He wasn’t awake, as it so happened. Her sister’s son lay in a bed that looked far too big for such a small boy, his face creased with worry even in sleep. His sheets withe thin enough so that she could see the shapes of his legs and torso, shapes that weren't natural. A hand poked from beneath the covers, a hand with warped skin and crooked fingers, attached to a scarred wrist.

Petunia stared. She hadn’t honestly known what to expect, she hadn’t been able to get much out of Dudley other than the fact that Harry had been hurt. This wasn’t the over-the-top deformity she’d been expecting, but in a way that made it worse. No horns or extra limbs, he might look normal from a distance.

Tentatively, she reached out and pressed the pads of her fingers against the top of the hand, letting them trail over the striations and catch on a ridge of broken bone under his index knuckle, just beneath the skin.

Harry let out a faint moan, then, slowly, he turned his hand and reached up for her. His fingers twitched oddly as his palm met hers, warm and calloused from all that work she’d made him do. His fingers couldn't wrap around hers' properly.

And it was too much for her. She yanked her hand out of Harry’s, turned, and dashed off as quickly as she dared.

When she got back to the Leaky Cauldron, she went straight to the ladies' restroom and locked herself in the farthest stall. She didn’t cry, but the strain behind her eyes didn’t leave her for the rest of the day.

  
  


***

  
  


A ways away from St. Mungos- an hour as the owl flies- Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, kneading at the ridge of his nose and wondering how much more could go wrong in a week.

“Are you absolutely sure that there’s nothing more that you can do?” he asked the man and the woman sitting across from him.

Saul Croaker was the first to speak, his voice, which normally contrasted his surname nicely, now sounded more fitting after four sleepless nights.

“Positive, Headmaster. Whatever curse that son of a bitch hit him with was...it was more than we expected of someone like Nott. Merlin, Albus, it was more than we’d expect of a Black or a Malfoy!”

“We think it might have been a new curse entirely. It was _very_ adaptive and hurt the boy more if we tried any actual spells. We had to use some pretty advanced runic magic on him to get out of his system. Quite impressive work from such a monster.” The woman, a healing prodigy named Gayle Mathers, added, looking caught between excitement and self-recrimination.

Dumbledore shook his head with a sigh, feeling his years acutely.

“How bad is he?”

Croaker shot Mathers a glare that cut off whatever she might’ve been about to say before he laid it all out.

“The curse was multifaceted, it caused his muscles to constrict over his bones until they broke while it also caused his joints to swell and crack. That was bad enough, but if we tried any healing spells- even a simple ‘episkey’, it would tear his skin open. 

We stopped it, and I honestly can’t wait for that Death Eater scum to get caught so we can ship him back to Azkaban where he belongs- permanently if I have any say in the matter. But the boy is in a bad way, Albus. The bones of his legs are warped, so are the joints there, so are his hands. 

“He’s got a fair few scars across his body, and we’ll need to see if the trauma to his stomach has done anything, we’re pretty sure we healed that part of him completely, though.”

Albus placed his head in his hands and wished that he were anywhere else.

“Will he be able to walk?” he asked, softly.

“We aren’t sure, Headmaster.” said Mathers, sounding eager to make up for her earlier faux pas, “We’ll need to do some more tests. But the prognosis on that front isn’t looking good.”

Dumbledore nodded, somber and silent, the characteristic twinkle gone from his eyes, “Thank you for telling me. I….I need some time alone if you please.”

“Of course, Headmaster,” said Croaker, getting up and leading Mathers with him. There was a soft, “Ministry of Magic, 8th Level.” then a flash of light and the two were gone, leaving Albus mercifully alone in an office that felt far too small to handle what he was feeling at the moment.

_There’s no use in Obliviating them now. Not with Harry’s wounds and not with the time limit exceeded._

Anger, hot and untamed, crept up his chest as he thought about what happened in that drab little village. _No child should have that done to them, especially not someone like Harry. That boy has dark times coming anyway, damn them!_

_I should have seen the signs, they call me the greatest wizard of our times, but I couldn’t prevent this from happening, another foul-up in a long list. And I cannot let him go back to the life he had, Tom’s back, he’ll catch wind of this soon enough._

It was with great effort and no small amount of shame that he forced the guilt he felt into the back of his mind. There were things he needed to do. He needed to keep the press away from Harry, he needed to look into methods of helping the boy recover, he needed to find some better way of monitoring the Death Eater’s activities.

And he needed to find a new safe house for the Philosopher’s Stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tuney REALLY doesn't want to admit the truth, even if it kills her.
> 
> If you see any grammar issues or British-isms that I missed, please let me know and thanks for reading!


	3. Bitter Pills

Harry lay as still as he could, trying to keep his mind on small things, little facts and secret, cherished memories. 

He’d started off trying to focus on the spattering of rain against the tall window opposite him and the comforting warmth of the bed he currently occupied, but he’d found it impossible to remove the sounds and feelings from their context.

He tried instead to remember ice lollies on hot summer days- when he could sneak one without the Dursley’s noticing him, of the scent of old paperbacks, of soft soil under his hands.

But everything else was always lurking in the background, a whole worlds’ worth of things he didn’t want to think about, but couldn’t help but to.

Every little memory he tried to hold onto always ran back towards a big, squirming jumble of awful truths that he wanted to run from. 

He’d already had what he thought might’ve been a panic attack- a nasty one, too- and it had caught the attention of a lady who wore a nurse’s dress straight out of one of those costume dramas that Vernon and Petunia liked to watch, and _that_ had just further reminded him of how wrong things were.

It had been a while since then. Harry didn’t know how long, he wasn’t really keeping track. He was torn between wanting to sleep and wanting to stay awake.

It’s lonely, a part of him wanted somebody to talk to, but the idea of it being one of _them_ sours that thought.

Then again, were they actually bad? If his memories from while he was in that unnerving limbo were anything to go by then they had tried to help him. Why help him if they wanted to kill him? Unless they wanted him healthy for something else…

The image of grinning, robed figures leading him towards a massive oven enters his mind unbidden, and the worry starts to return.

His ruminations were interrupted as a sudden spasm worked its way up his left leg, drawing a gasp from the boy. The leg shook for a few moments, bouncing awkwardly, making his knee scream. The pain made his eyes misty before it subsided.

And there was his body reminding him that it wasn’t okay. He knew that something terrible had happened to him, every twitch and slight movement reminded him of that. How his knees and ankles were swollen and uneven, how the muscles in his lower back spasmed if he put too much weight on them, the way his crooked fingers rubbed against each other under the blanket.

_What did he_ do _to me?_

That was the question that kept rearing up out of the hundreds that were already crowding his head, and it was the one that led him down paths he didn’t want to even think about.

The tension in his head and chest were getting painful, he hadn’t even noticed that his breathing had picked up again, but he knew he needed to calm down. 

Taking a few deep breaths, Harry opened his eyes and tried desperately to put every ounce of his attention towards counting the tiles on the floor, which was difficult, as his glasses were on the nightstand next to him, and he wanted to put off having to look at his hands for as long as he possibly could.

He made it to 21 before the door opened.

Feeling his heart skip a beat, he craned his neck and saw two people coming towards him, he barely had time to get his wits about him before they were at the foot of his bed.

The first person was a tall woman with very short grey hair and a squarish, serious face. If not for the monocle and the grey robes, he might’ve thought that she was a general in the army, she certainly looked like someone in charge.

The second one was a man. Shorter, and of average height, blonde-red-black hair framing an oval-shaped face that was terribly hollow, blue-green-yellow eyes-

Harry blinked hard, dizzied by the sight of so many contradictions at once. When he opened them, the man was short, but well-built, with short-cropped, sandy hair and a fair-skinned, heart-shaped face.

“My apologies,” he said, sounding thoroughly embarrassed.

Harry just stared, trying his hardest to think through enough hoops to explain away what he’d just seen.

_I’ve been out for a while, I probably had drugs when they were working on me, that’s it. There’s still some left in my system and I was seeing things, plus I don’t have my glasses, maybe that played a part in it-_

“Mr. Potter?” the woman asked, her voice surprisingly soft and melodic, though a bit deep.

_Say something, say something, say something, you idiot, don’t do this, j_ _ust mind your manners like Vernon says and it’ll all be okay._

“H-hello,” he said past a throat that felt like a desert.

“My name is Amelia Bones, I am head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, this-” she nodded towards the grizzled man, “is Saul Croaker, he’s the Unspeakable who worked on healing you. We’re...magical police officers, of a sort.”

Harry went pale. _They have police? What did I do? Are they going to put me in prison? Do they even have prisons, or do they just kill you?_

“Mr. Potter?” 

Mrs. Bones was looking at him and Harry quickly stammered out, “O-oh! I-it’s very nice to meet you. Did...Did I do something wrong?”

Mrs. Bones, looking more than a little taken aback, shook her head, “Not at all, Mr. Potter. We’re here…” she trailed off for a moment as she seemed to gather herself, “I’m sorry, I was getting ahead of myself. This has been a rather...intense few days and we’ve been waiting a while to speak with you.”

“A little while?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“You’ve been under for a week, Mr. Potter, today is Monday.” said Mrs. Bones softly, “May I sit?”

Harry nodded despite not seeing a chair around. The woman pulled out a stick- a wand- of her own and, with three quick flourishes, levitated Harry’s glasses from his nightstand and placed them on his head, then moved the stand from its’ place and turned it into a chair.

She sat down, her back ramrod straight, while Harry tried to keep his mangled hands from shaking.

There really was no denying it now. That had been magic, those sticks were wands, and the people who were sitting with him, alone, as well as the man who’d attacked him, were all wizards. Harry felt like he’d started to fall.

He stared at the spot where the nightstand had been, then at the chair that Mrs. Bones was sitting on, the image of the wood bending and reforming, of those few seconds where it seemed to be liquid rather than solid, sat in his mind, burning itself into his memories.

_Is that what had happened to me on the Playground?_ He wondered, feeling his gorge rise.

“Mr. Potter?” asked the woman, drawing his eyes back to her.

Not wanting to irritate her any more than he must have already, Harry swallowed once, twice, then said, “Yes?”

“I know that this must be a difficult time, and there are a lot of things we need to discuss, some are more important than others, but for right now I’d like to ask you a few questions, and we’ll see if that helps any, alright?”

Hesitantly, Harry nodded. 

Mrs. Bones smiled softly, “Okay, this is, I think the most important question: Do you have any prior knowledge of the Wizarding World?”

_If I lie about this, then they’ll find out, eventually. Too much I don’t know, I need to just...just tell the truth. If they hurt me for not knowing anything about them, they might let me go, but they’ll definitely hurt me more if I try and weasel my way out of this._

Harry shook his head, forcing himself to look at both of the adults as he did. Mrs. Bones furrowed her brow and Croaker sighed.

“Alright,” said Mrs. Bones at length, “where to start...ah, you’re in St. Mungo’s, it’s a magical hospital. You were cursed last week, but thankfully our nurses- we call them mediwitches- helped save you, with Mr. Croaker’s help.”

“Thank you.” said Harry, trying to feel grateful amidst the worry and uncertainty. Croaker merely nodded.

“The Wizarding World has existed practically since the dawn of civilization. We’re...distant from people who don’t use magic-”

“Muggles.” supplied Croaker.

“Because the existence of magic would cause tremendous upheaval in both worlds. Did anyone ever teach you about the Salem Witch Trials?”

Harry nodded.

“That’s what we’re afraid of.”

“Is that why that man cursed me?” asked Harry, surprised that he’d managed to ask anything when his tongue felt so leaden, “because he thought I’d turn him in or tell or something?”

Mrs. Bones shook her head, her expression seeming caught between worry and guilt.

“No, that’s not the reason. I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Potter, but I’d prefer to go into that later. I’m afraid it might be a bit much for you at the present time.”

Harry nodded, feeling yet another cold spike of dread pierce his guts. What did she mean by “a bit much”?

“O-okay.” He conceded, not wanting to push his luck.

Mrs. Bones nodded, more to herself than him, and said, “Alright. There are a lot of things we need to go over with you, I really am sorry for intruding on you at this time. But we need something from you.”

“The man who attacked you- Edwin Nott- is in custody, but he’s from a very old and very wealthy family. We don’t want him to be able to bribe his way out of this, so we need a memory from you.”

At Harry’s alarmed look, Mrs. Bones raised her hands, palms out, “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt and you’ll keep the memory. All we need for you to do is think about that day, I’ll take out my wand, place it right here” she tapped her left temple “and it’ll come out. Then we bottle it and take it before the court to show them. Do you think you can do that for us?”

_Oh, god, she’s gonna use her wand on me. What if she’s lying? What if something goes wrong and it leaves me brain dead or..or in a coma? Maybe they’ve been-_

“We don’t have to do it today, Harry.”

The words snapped him back to reality and he looked to see that it was Croaker who had spoken. 

“We _will_ need it, but you don’t have to think about it right now, and I promise you it won’t hurt.” his voice was soft and Harry wanted desperately to believe him, but he couldn’t, not fully.

He nodded mutely and the two adults shared a look.

“There’s something else we need to talk to you about, and this one can’t wait.” said Croaker, “It’s about the state of your body.”

Harry looked down at his legs. “I...haven’t looked at them yet.”

“That’s understandable.” said Mrs. Bones, “But you can’t avoid what’s happened forever.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Would you mind if we saw your legs and hands? We need evidence of the damage done to you by Nott, and since we both thought that a big flashy bulb wasn’t the best way to go about it, we decided that we’d copy our memories, which means that we need to see them.”

Harry looked up at them, disbelieving, but the Aurors looked sad but serious. Words failed him and he shook his head.

“Harry-”

“I don’t want to!” he hissed, anger he hadn’t known he’d felt slipping through. He didn’t want to see and he didn’t want them looking at him like he was some museum piece. He wanted to be left alone, to sleep and sleep until all the awful thoughts and emotions stewing away in his head went away.

“Harry, you can’t stay here forever, and I know that this is upsetting for you, but you need to-”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Mrs. Bones hadn’t shouted, but she’d raised her voice and some of the warmth had left her eyes. Maybe she hadn’t meant it, but Harry didn’t care. All he felt was a stunning surge of fear like he’d just thrown a rock at a rabid dog or a starving bear.

_Make this right, now!_ A part of him commanded

“Harry, I-”

Before she could apologize Harry had grabbed the blankets and pulled them away, then yanked the legs of his pajamas up, ignoring the pain that the sudden movement brought. 

Mrs. Bones hissed through her teeth, but the sound only dimly registered as he saw what had been done to him.

His arms and legs were warped, thin like they’d been in casts for months, muscles twisted and knotted beneath skin covered in thick, white scars, knees swollen and puffy, fingers and toes crooked.

Nausea returned in full force and before either adult could react he had rolled onto his stomach and vomited onto the floor.

Without a word between them, Croaker vanished the sick on the floor and turned the chair that had been a nightstand into a basin while Mrs. Bones placed her hands on his shoulders and gently guided him into a sitting position.

To Harry, the woman’s hands felt like hot burners and he let out a strangled cry. The hands mercifully left his shoulders and he bent forwards, screwing his eyes shut as he moaned and began to rock back and forth.

“Harry?” Mrs. Bones sounded small, resigned, and upset.

The moaning turned into words, spoken between gasps that came on faster and faster.

“It’s all over, I’m useless now. I won’t be able to hold a trowel or cook and they’ll get rid of me, they’ll leave me at the curb or put me in the orphanage and I’ll really be all alone, and they’ll all look at me worse than at school because I won’t be able to do anything, and I’m never gonna walk again!”

With a low, hoarse wail he hung his head and started to sob helplessly, his hands twitching at his sides.

For a moment there was silence, then someone sat down to his left and gently took his hand.

“Harry. Harry, look at me, please,” asked Mrs. Bones, her voice very soft. It took her a few moments, but eventually, he turned puffy, teary eyes towards her.

“It’s going to be okay. You aren’t crippled, and you will be able to do plenty of things, just like anyone else. no matter what anyone says. We’re wizards, we’re going to help you, so don’t give up hope?”

Silently, he nodded. He didn’t believe her, but he was too tired to do much else, he felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

Taking his silence as acquiescence, Mrs. Bones lowered him back down, then gently lifted his blankets up to his chest, mercifully covering the rest of him. His mind was still spinning, even as he felt sleep begin to overpower everything else.

It took half an hour and several false starts, but he slept, and when the two Aurors were sure that he was well and truly out, they left.

  
  


***

  
  


The halls were quiet as they walked towards the fireplace, it was nearly four in the morning, and all but the worst off of the patients had long since gone to sleep.

“What do we think?” asked Croaker with a sigh.

“I messed up.” replied Amelia, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, “I lost my damn temper like an idiot.”

“It was a mistake, Amelia-”

“I’m guardian to a kid the same age as him!” She interrupted, “I’d _never_ act like that around Susan and here I go making things worse with a kid who’s already afraid of us, probably of all _this_ \- not that I necessarily blame him and Merlin, we’ll need to get someone on that, too, won’t we?”

“I just- have you been in at all these past few days?”

“No,” said Croaker with a tired shake of his head.

“Well, aside from all of _that_ back there, Fudge has been breathing down my neck for _something_ , _anything._ We can’t put Nott before the Wizengamot like this, not when the only other person who actually saw anything is a muggle child who isn’t in the best state either.”

“What about that Tonks girl?” asked Croaker, taking a pinch of floo powder and escorting his longtime friend through, whereupon she immediately cast a privacy spell.

“Didn’t see it. She saw Harry apparate the Dursley boy, they landed right in front of her. She did pretty well, though, all things considered. Kept a cool head, cast the right spells for Harry; She’d make a good Auror, but not a good witness.”

“What about Goyle and Avery?”

“Nothing. They’re gone.”

Croaker swore under his breath as they finally reached Amelia’s office. Once they were inside, she removed the spell and plopped ungracefully onto a nearby chair.

“What now?” asked Croaker, taking a seat himself.

“Well we need to find someone who can help Harry adjust to all this, we need to find a place to put the Dursleys and we still need to get ahold of the Notts and the Averys. Oh, and we need to get ahold of Dumbledore."

"Still no word from the old coot?"

"He was in Germany last I heard. Hopefully, he'll be back by now."

"Hopefully." echoed Croaker, not sounding optimistic in the slightest.

Letting out a hum of agreement Amelia got up and went to her desk, where she removed her monocle and poured herself a tall cup of strong, bitter coffee from a thermos charmed to produce an endless supply of whatever drink the holder wished. That done she passed it over to Croaker, pulled out a foot of parchment, cracked her knuckles, and prepared to spend the rest of the day writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was tougher to write, it went through a few different versions, but I decided that this was the best. I'll admit that I'm winging it on a lot of this. I have ideas for scenes and character arcs, but very little is locked in, planning things out in detail has always been a problem and one I need to rectify.
> 
> I'm also worried that Harry's breakdown would come off as irritating, I hope it didn't.


	4. Braces.

“It’ll be okay, it won’t hurt a bit.”

Harry nodded, not believing it. 

He’d resisted the second time Mrs. Bones and Mr. Croaker had come about, and they’d let the matter go in lieu of telling him a bit more about the Wizarding World before they’d been called away, but he was tired by this point.

They’d both arrived, looking hopeful, Mrs. Bones carrying a leather satchel, Croaker carrying a large, rectangular box under one arm, and Harry had been too tired to put up a fight or upset them.

_If they’d have wanted to kill me, then they would have done it._ He rationalized while trying desperately to keep all the scenarios that said otherwise at bay. 

Truthfully he felt as if he were between a rock and a hard place if he let them take the memory- if that was really their intention- then it might hurt him no matter what he said, but if he continued to push his luck, then their patience would run out and who knew what they’d do then.

He flinched when the wand came out, but he managed to keep still as Mrs. Bones gently placed it to his temple. He thought about that day, as they had instructed, with a shudder.

There was a faint prickling in his skull, to him it felt like static looked, and then it was gone.

“See? Not so bad,” said Croaker with a small smile.

Harry nodded, it really hadn’t been. The wizards had kept their word. Relief flooded his veins like cool water and he found himself giggling a little at the rush as he settled back down. Something in his periphery caught his attention and he turned in time to see Mrs. Bones placing a thin, silver-blue strand of light into a little glass bottle.

It’s strange to see a memory, something formless and a part of him, be given form and then taken by someone else. Strange and a bit upsetting, but it’s also fascinating, despite how much he doesn’t want it to be.

“Can I see it? The bottle?” The question is out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

Mrs. Bones raised a brow and for a moment Harry thought she was about to dismiss him, but then she smiled softly, gestured for him to hold out his hand and gently set the little bottle in his palm.

“Don’t drop it, alright?” 

He nodded, already entranced by what he was seeing. It floated there, one second the color of some tropical ocean at daylight, the next like liquid silver. It cast a cold glow on his calloused palms and, for a second, he thought he could hear something from behind the glass, a little snippet of conversation.

Not wanting to ruin the awe he felt, he carefully handed it back to Mrs. Bones, who tucked it safely away.

“Now that that’s done,” she said after a moment, “we need to talk about how we’re going to start your physical therapy.”

Harry nodded, feeling the familiar worry return.

Croaker came forwards and laid the box down by the side of the bed, opening it with a flourish of his wand and levitating their contents out. It took him a second for Harry to recognize them for what they were, but when he did he blinked in shock.

They were braces, like the kind he’d kept seeing in the costume dramas, only they were more complex-looking and they looked like they’d cover more than just his legs. 

They came in sections; Legs and arms. The struts and hoops of the leg portions fed into what looked like a metal belt, which had a strange, silvery pipe sticking up from the back. There were sleek dials on the knee and ankle segments, as well as what were definitely magic runes.

The arm section was a leather harness with a lot of straps (Was he going to have to remember where they all went?) that held a second metal back piece, two shoulder and elbow pieces and a set of gloves with little struts for each finger.

The overall effect was, to Harry’s mind, a bit medieval and more than a little intimidating in a way he couldn’t fully place. At the very least it looked like it was going to be a hassle to put on.

“This is a specialized full-body brace.” said Mrs. Bones, “We got it from a wizard in Japan who makes them for a living. You don’t need to worry about the straps right now, they’re charmed to come together when you touch the metal.”

“They’re also enchanted to be feather-light, and they should be charmed so that they won’t dent if you have an accident and fall.” 

Harry reached out and ran a shaky finger against the metal of one of the leg struts. It was cool and unyielding beneath his touch.

“Will putting it on hurt?”

The two Aurors shared a look before Mrs. Bones cleared her throat. “Yes, unfortunately. They’re to keep your bones straight and in the right positions, your left leg and some of your fingers and toes are too crooked, so we’ll need to re-break them, after that the braces will conform to your limbs and hold tight, so there’ll be pressure and you’ll probably be achy for a little while afterward.”

Harry swallowed thickly, “Is that the only way?”

Croaker nodded, looking at him pityingly, “We think so, yeah. There’s a potion we make called Skele-gro, it regenerates new bones from scratch, but…that might not go down so well in your case.” 

Harry sucked in a breath as the realization hit and “It’s the curse, right?” was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, less for fear of reprisal and more because he knew that it was the truth, and hearing it confirmed would just force the new problems that followed that revelation into the light.

“Yeah. We got it, but it left...damages. Your body’s still reacting poorly to our potions-”

“But I’ve been taking potions!”

“I know, I know” soothed Croaker, “But the ones you’ve been taking are, for lack of a better word, watered down, that’s to keep you from getting sick.”

“Is…” Harry swallowed again, hoping that the stress wouldn’t make him throw up again, “Is that why my stomach burst?”

Croaker did a double-take, “How did you know about that?”

Harry looked down, hoping that he hadn’t messed up somehow, “I heard you. I wasn’t really awake, but I wasn’t asleep, either, I was kind of...in between?”

The two adults looked like someone had slapped both of them and Harry ducked his head with a faint, “‘M sorry.”

“No, no, no, it- it’s okay, I just didn’t know.”

The helplessness and worry in his voice made something in Harry’s gut clench. He racked his brain, but he could only think of maybe a few times when an adult in his life had ever shown that much worry for him, and their frequency had decreased over the years as he grew and the Dursley’s lies about him spread.

“Did you hear anything else?”

Harry shrugged as much as he could manage, “I heard some lady and a man called Malfoy talking about how I should be oblivion-ed.”

“Obliviated.” corrected Mrs. Bones with an exasperated sigh, “We normally wipe the memories of muggles who come into contact with the wizarding world, but you’re a special case. It wouldn’t have hurt your family or you.”

Harry nodded, risking a glance at the faces of the adults. They looked frustrated and still upset, but he didn’t think either of those things was directed at him, which was good.

“Will I need to put the braces on today?” he asked after a moment.

“If you feel up to it,” said Mrs. Bones.

Harry nodded, not letting himself dwell on the possibilities. He wanted the pain over with, and he wanted to start on the road to recovery as soon as possible.

“Okay, we’ll start with the legs first,” said Mrs. Bones, lowering the floating braces down a bit.

They pulled the blankets back and Croaker gently slipped one hand behind Harry’s back and one beneath his knees. Then, as slowly as he could, he gently lifted him into a sitting position and then maneuvered his legs over the edge of the bed.

“You alright, Harry?” he asked, a hand still on his back.

“Yeah.” He replied. It was the truth, there’d only been a few jolts, but nothing severe.

“Okay,” said Mrs. Bones, tilting the braces so that he could get into it. “I want you to extend your legs as well as you are able, point your toes down and keep as still as you can, do you think you can do that?”

Harry winced but nodded. Slowly, and with great deliberateness, he extended one leg and then the other, toes down. The pain was dull, not sharp, but it built, little aches flaring into life everywhere and clustering until his legs felt like they had been dipped in acid. Little tremors flitted down his calves, tiny cramps that felt like wasp stings.

He gasped and shut his eyes tightly.

Mrs. Bones shushed him and told him that he was doing fantastically as she slowly eased the belt and hoops up his lower body. The metal warped and expanded slightly to accommodate his movements, then, after he’d been picked up so the belt could go on all the way, it returned to its previous dimensions.

“That’s that done.” said Croaker, moving to the door, “ Now we need to let them tighten, and for that, we’re going to give you a pain potion, it’ll have to be diluted, but it should dull the pain.”

He called out and a rather plump woman with dark hair and brown eyes came in. She carried a thin vial of a murky liquid that glowed faintly in the sunlight that streamed through the windows.

“Here you are, love,” she said, flashing Harry a smile that revealed a chipped front tooth. Harry gave a faint smile in return and accepted it, downing it all in one go as instructed. It tasted a bit like flat cherry soda.

“All right. Here we go,” said Croaker, drawing his wand and drew the tip of it across the runes on the struts. He began to mutter something in what sounded like Latin and the runes glowed a faint green.

Then the metal began to contract. They went off in sections, going up the length of his legs, unyielding metal fastening tightly and quickly. He heard his bones shift before the pain hit, sharp this time, and lingering. He’d dislocated his shoulder once and had had to have it put back in, this was like that, but it was worse because it just kept going.

He kept quiet for the ankles, but he was crying openly by the time the spell reached his knees. 

He was dimly aware that Mrs. Bones and Croaker were speaking to him, whispering calming things in soft voices, and that someone was holding his hand, but he couldn’t focus. All he could think about were the sounds, the shifting and popping and crunching, and the fiery pain.

_It’ll be over soon, it’ll be over soon._ He repeated to himself as the hoops around his tights closed in, and then the belt, and finally the thin silver pipe. 

_That_ one felt different; First, it grew cold, cold enough for him to feel it through the fabric of his pajamas, then there was a soft, pliant pressure on and around the curve of his spine like someone was pressing putty onto his back, and finally, there were a series of sudden, painful pinches that drew a startled gasp from him.

And then it was over.

Harry sagged inwards and Mrs. Bones caught him. Together with Croaker, they got him fully into bed, mindful of his new braces.

“Try and get some sleep, yeah?” said Croaker, “We’ll say for a bit to make sure you’re okay.”

Harry wanted to laugh at the idea of getting sleep when he felt as bad as he did, but his throat was too dry and his tongue felt dead in his mouth, so he lay back, trying to distract himself from his aching legs and back.

He pictured himself walking, taking long, confident steps, of kneeling in the garden and bouncing on trampolines. He imagined laying in a comfortable bed somewhere warm and bright, alone and unbothered by other people, in a cozy house full of good food and good books.

He was asleep faster than either Auror expected.

  
  


***

“May I come in?”

Petunia clenched her teeth and forced a smile, “Of course.”

Croaker- _“Horrible name”_ \- rolled his eyes and stepped into their room, looking as proper as she supposed wizards could.

“How are the new accommodations treating you?”

Petunia sighed, their stay at the Leaky Cauldron had been extended by a full two weeks because of “security concerns”, so some Aurors had gotten together and cast an extension charm on their room, making it almost as big on the inside as Number 4, adding separate rooms, colorful carpeting, and better lighting.

But it wasn’t the same. She missed her home, the soft, blue-grey carpeting on the stairs, the lamp that her mother-in-law had given her as a housewarming present, the little kitchen with its round table, the worn-in scent of roast seasoning.

She told him as much- albeit not in as many words- and Croaker nodded.

“Yes, we are sorry for that, but it will still be a while.”

“That boy…” murmured Vernon, looking down at his hands and shaking his head. Petunia and Croaker frowned in tandem, though for different reasons.

“I assure you, the blame does _not_ lie with Mr. Potter, Mr. Dursley.” said the Auror, his tone hovering on the border between civility and hostility. Privately, Petunia had to give the man credit, he’d been taking the brunt of Vernon’s anger for a while, and he hadn’t even hexed them once.

Still, for what good it’d do in the end, she shot her husband a cold glare that forced his mouth shut and then turned back to Croaker.

“How is he?” 

Croaker turned back to her, “He’s alright. Still a bit scared of us, I think, but we’ve got him talking more and he’s been eating a bit better- although it’s still a bit of a problem getting him to take potions.”

“Good.” said Petunia, catching her husband’s start out of the corner of her eye, “Do you think that...if I talk to him, it’ll help him not put up a fight?”

Croaker’s brows raised and he stared at her for a long moment before slowly answering. “Yes, I think that might work, having a family member who knows about us but is still in the muggle world. We can bring you at around 3, does that work?”

She nodded. 

“Good, now, where is your son?”

“What do you want him for?” asked Vernon, curling his hands into empty fists in his lap.

“I thought it best to check up on him, he doesn’t seem to be doing so well.”

Vernon scowled, “And whose fault is that eh? You people, take us and- and imprison us here with no way of leaving or telling anybody where we are, my boy nearly got murdered by one of you lot, of bloody _course_ he’s not alright!”

He’d built himself into a serious froth, his face impressively purple, his hands trembling. He’d actually stood up as if he could _do_ anything to the wizard.

For his part, a slight pursing of the lips was the only thing that gave away just how irritated and offended Croaker was. 

“I understand your frustration, Mr. Dursley, but is fighting and yelling going to make your boy feel any better, especially since he’s listening to us?”

They turned as a unit, Dudley’s door, which had been firmly shut for most of their time, was open a crack. As they watched, the door opened fully, revealing a flustered and shamefaced Dudley.

Petunia felt her breath catch in her throat. Her boy was so _pale_ , a nasty white-grey, like he was sick with a stomach bug, there were dark bags under his eyes and his normally-pudgy cheeks had started to hollow, his clothes didn’t hang off of him as they did with Harry, but they were noticeably looser.

“‘M okay,” he said softly. 

“Like hell you are!” snapped Vernon, glaring irately at Croaker and gesturing to his now shamefaced son, “You see what you people have done to him?”

  
“Vernon,” warned Petunia, glancing between the three of them, hoping her husband would get the picture, he usually did, but not today.

“No, Petunia, this...this insanity has gone on long enough! These people keep us here like prisoners and expect us to, what, behave, be _grateful?_ No, we are British citizens and I demand that you let us out of here at once!”

Croaker’s left eye twitched, he heaved a deep, slow breath, then began:

“I have told you this many times, Vernon Dursley. But let me be more graphic” he looked at Petunia, who quickly moved over and covered Dudley’s ears, “there are at least- at least- two people out in the muggle world who belong to the group who killed your wife’s sister. They are powerful, they are cunning and they _hate_ people like you, people without magic.’

“When they were at the height of their power they did things to people like you, they skinned them alive, burned them to ash, kept them trapped in waking nightmares, tore their senses away and left them in the dark, turned them into gardens of meat, forced them to commit unspeakable acts on their loved ones’

“I once found a family who'd been cursed to become part of their own house, Mr. Dursley, can you imagine it? A family of four fused to their walls and chairs, unable to get out? So far we’ve found two curses placed on your home, do you want to know what they would have done to you all if you had activated them?”

Vernon shook his head, all bravado gone. Croaker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I know you hate us, but please bear in mind that not all of us are...whatever you think we are. And you can go other places and get some fresh air, you just need a minimum of two Aurors to accompany you.”

“Can we go see Harry?”

Vernon turned and stared, Dudley was looking at him with big, imploring eyes.

“Wh-whatever for?”

“He saved me,” stated Dudley as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and Vernon was an idiot for not realizing it.

Before he could respond, Petunia put her two cents in, “I think that might be a good idea. You need the fresh air and...I’m sure Harry wouldn’t mind the company if he’s up to it.”

Vernon’s jaw dropped. Petunia looked like she’d bitten into a lemon, but she’d still said it, and the way she held his gaze made it clear that she wasn’t taking it back, as much as it had irritated her to say.

Croaker looked at him, then at Petunia and Dudley, “I’m sure we can arrange a trip today.” he said diplomatically. 

Vernon opened his mouth to protest, but the utter relief and excitement, marred as it was by tiredness and worry, on his son’s face brought him up short. He looked to Petunia, who was smiling faintly at Dudley, and his mind was made up.

Drawing himself up as best he could, he looked at Croaker, “I’ll expect you have some rules?”

Croaker nodded, looking surprised and relieved.

***

Dudley blinked at the sudden onslaught of sound and color and movement, it was like waking up to a party.

Diagon Alley was teeming with people, all wearing clothing that looked utterly ridiculous on all of them (Except maybe the blonde family in their formal attire). Here was a man with a conical hat embossed with blue waves that actually moved, there a witch with impossibly long fingers playing a strange, multi-layered organ-piano-drum thing.

He’d already bumped into two people, the first had been a witch with a small canary sleeping in her hat, who’d merely smiled and accepted his apologies, the second had been a very short man with black eyes and claws, he’s hissed at him in a language he didn’t know, baring sharp teeth as he did, and after that Dudley had made an effort to be more aware of his surroundings.

They passed by a shop that sold owls, one that sold magic ice cream, another that had wands. He saw moving pictures advertising potions competitions and a circus that apparently had a real live dragon!

So much of it was astounding that it caught him off guard when they passed the joke shop. There was something about it, from the wacky font to the little fireworks in the window that made him remember how much he and Piers used to like pranking people.

They hadn’t been nice pranks, he was sure of that now, but he remembered the way they’d take off down the road, laughing, after throwing a cherry bomb at someone’s mailbox or when they’d TP some geezer’s house.

Piers had had a high pitched giggle, and Dudley remembered, very vividly, how he’d once gotten into a fight with the thinner boy over it.

_“You sound like a right pansy!.” he’d mocked, mimicking what he thought Piers sounded like and laughing until his face was red._

_The boy’s face had gone scarlet and he’s clenched his hands into fists, “Shut the hell up, you prat!” he’d shrieked. It might’ve actually had the desired effect, but his voice had cracked halfway through, and the only way that he’d been able to shut Dudley up had been to punch him in the nose._

Hot shame flooded his gut and he winced. They hadn’t talked for a week after that, and when they’d made up it’d been Piers who apologized to _him_

_I’m sorry, Piers,_ he thought miserably, feeling the wonder from before starting to fade. There was pressure behind his eyes, but he kept the tears back as best he could, he didn’t want them to think he was a crybaby, and he didn’t want them to take him back, he _needed_ to see his cousin.

  
  


***

They took a long and circuitous route to get to St, Mungos, Dudley overheard Croaker tell his dad that they were “being extra-cautious”. His dad hadn’t looked too chuffed about that, but Dudley thought it was like being in a Bond movie and that made him feel a little better.

Eventually, they found the abandoned building that served as the cover for the real place (another thing straight out of Bond) and they entered.

_Even their sick people are weird._ He found himself thinking as he skirted past a woman who had a head that was either a baby’s or was just shrunken, a man with dozens of eyeballs growing from his head like grapes, and a woman with what looked like several pots full of water fused to her arms.

He was led past the waiting room and down a confusing tangle of hallways before they arrived at the ward Harry was staying in.

It was quiet inside, Harry was sitting, propped up by a mound of pillows, looking as pale and tired as Dudley. At the sound of the door opening, he turned his head to look, his eyes going wide behind his glasses.

He went to him, crossing the span in a few steps and plopping himself down on Harry’s bed.

“Hullo, Cousin,” he said, smiling a little.

Harry blinked owlishly at him, then offered a weak, “Hello?”

“Are you feeling okay?”

Harry nodded, his eyes never leaving Dudley, “Right now, yeah. They gave me some pain...potions a little while ago. I got the leg braces yesterday and tomorrow I’m going to get the ones for my arms.”

“You have braces? Can I see?” asked Dudley solemnly Harry seemed to consider saying "No" for a second, then he obligingly pulled back the covers, exposing the shiny steel braces. He was wearing pajama bottoms, but one ankle had ridden up, giving Dudley an unpleasant glimpse of ropy scars and strangely warped skin.

_He’s like this because he saved me._

He felt numb for a moment, then the realization hit and brought tears to his eyes. He sniffled and looked at Harry, who looked back, wide-eyed, like he was expecting a beating. Dudley tried to speak, but couldn’t find the words, so he reached out to pull his cousin into a hug...and Harry _flinched._

It all hit home right then for Dudley Dursley. All the names, the punching, laughing as his parents screamed at him, sneering down at him as he crawled out of the cupboard.

_“Whatcha doin’, Freak?” he’d asked, over and over through the years until Harry would go still or flinch when he heard it. (He’d said it That Day, too.) He’d kicked dirt in his face when he hadn’t answered and, when Harry had tried to keep working Dudley had swatted him in the back of the head like he’d seen his dad do._

_He hadn’t questioned it, he had just done it. He was awful, he’d always_ been _awful._

He hung his head and began to sob in earnest, husky and unpleasant.

“I’m sorry, H-Harry,” he stammered between gasps, trying to see his cousin through the haze of tears, “I-I w-was s-s-so mean to you and I...I said a-all those b-bad things and I _h-hurt_ you and I’m sorry!”

He couldn’t speak anymore, just cry. 

***

Once again Harry felt uncomfortable and confused, watching Dudley weep like he was reminded of how upset Mrs. Bones had been when they’d first met.

He thought he’d known where he stood with most adults, and her reaction had destabilized him, and this was somehow worse because he knew Dudley, he _lived_ with Dudley and he could count the number of times he’d cried for real on one hand.

A part of him screamed at him, _‘This is a trick! He’s not sad for you, he’s faking so you’ll get close, then he’ll punch you or hit one of your legs.’_ so he didn’t move to embrace him, but the guilt that he felt just watching the other boy sit there and cry wouldn’t let him do anything.

Reaching a compromise with himself, he reached out and gently laid a hand on Dudley’s shoulder. His cousin sniffled and looked up at him with wet eyes.

“I’m okay, they say they’ll help me get better, so don’t worry!” ” said Harry, feeling another stab of discomfort at the shame on Dudley’s face; _This isn’t right._ He smiled widely, hoping his cousin would buy it.

Dudley took a deep, shuddering breath, nodded- more to himself than Harry- then said, “I’m not gonna bully you ever again. Never ever. I..I was a prat and I’ll be better,” he turned and looked Harry dead in the eyes and said, “I promise.”

Harry swallowed, feeling like the air had grown dry. He was profoundly uncomfortable at having anyone, much less Dudley, apologize to him like that, with so much seriousness. Dudley wasn’t a serious person, he threw fits and played video games all day when he wasn’t mucking about with his gang, he didn’t apologize, especially to people he hated.

_He’s serious._ He realized with a start. 

Dudley was looking at him, gnawing his bottom lip, clearly getting anxious by his cousin’s stunned silence.

“Okay.” said Harry once he’d found his voice, “Thank you.”

With a slight effort, he leaned forwards and wrapped his arms around Dudley, noticing for the first time how thin he was.

“Have you been eating?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry.” came the soft reply.

“You should still eat,” said Harry, drawing back with a serious expression, “I could see if a nurse can bring you something.”

Dudley bit his lip again, then looked over his shoulder at his family, who Harry had only just noticed standing in the door, then he turned back and nodded, “If you’re okay with it, I guess I can eat a little.”

Harry smiled and then ran a thumb over a rune etched into the metal of his bedpost, there was one next to it, larger, to alert the nurses- no, _mediwitches_ \- in case something bad was happening, that way there was less frustration all around.

The nurse with the chipped tooth- Edith- was more than happy to get them a bowl of stew each, commenting about how thin they were as she did. If she saw the affronted glower on Petunia’s face or the jaw-clenched impatient anger on Vernon’s, then she didn’t acknowledge them.

They ate in silence, Harry savoring the rich taste, Dudley savoring the warmth. When they were finished Dudley gave his cousin a quick, awkward hug and then left with a happy smile on his face.

Harry sank back in the bed, overwhelmed. He felt like the day had thrown everything at him and it had only just gotten dark out. 

_At least I don’t have to get the upper part of the brace put on until the day after tomorrow._ He thought, snuggling into the mattress, _And Dudley seemed like he wasn’t lying, maybe he can convince Vernon and Petunia to ease up on me, they do_ everything _he asks._

Despite the hope that kindled in his chest at the thought, he couldn’t picture the Dursleys being kind to him for long, none of them had much patience or temper when it came to him, so he just imagined himself sitting with Dudley at the swings, neither one talking, just existing side by side on a sunny day.

  
 _That wouldn’t be so bad._ He thought as he finally drifted off.


	5. Moody Blues

**_EDWIN NOTT ARRESTED! OFFICIALLY DECLARED DEATH EATER!!_ **

_In a shocking turn of events, well-respected philanthropist and author Edwin Nott has been arrested by the DMLE and officially indicted for crimes as a Death Eater._

_Mr. Nott had previously been imprisoned in Azkaban under the suspicion of having had ties to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, however, he was released due to a lack of credible witnesses._

_Now, though, it has been confirmed via Pensive memories from several witnesses that Nott is, in fact, a Death Eater, and that he attacked several as-of-yet-unnamed wizards and muggles, killing several and wounding the remainder, in a violent spree the motive of which has been undisclosed._

_When asked her reasons for this, current Head of the DMLE Amelia Bones’ favored us with this statement:_

_“We do not wish to subject those harmed by Mr. Nott to any more trouble than they already have. We will release an official statement once they are ready to give their accounts, we wish to have a comprehensive account of what happened.”_

_The full official list of charges against Nott is as follows: Three counts of premeditated murder, one of which was a muggle child, the other two of which were both Aurors; Over seventeen uses of the Unforgivable Curses as well as several other Dark spells, evading arrest, resisting capture and illegal use of magic in a muggle area._

_Mr. Nott has been tried by the full Wizengamot and sentenced to life in Azkaban._

_Additionally, Mr. Nott had two accomplices, who have been confirmed to be Warren Avery and Gregory Goyle Senior, managed to evade arrest and currently occupy the Top Ten of the DMLE’s Most Wanted, any information that you or a loved one may have as to their whereabouts would be greatly appreciated._

_Further details can be found on Page 2..._

  
  


Harry put the paper down, wondering why he’d given in to curiosity. 

On one hand, he was glad that Nott wouldn’t be hurting anyone again, but there were two others just like him on the loose, and, from what he’d gleaned from the paper’s wording, there were even more than that.

_They must be some kind of cult. How many more are there? Maybe the paper has more on them, and who’s You-Know-Who? I mean, he must be their leader, where’s_ he _? Did they catch him, too?_

Frowning slightly, Harry started to turn the page to keep reading, but a sudden loud _BANG_ drew his full attention. The paper slipped from his weak grip as he whirled around, muscles tensing as he took in the sight of the man limping towards him.

He was stooped and broad-shouldered, dressed in a weather-beaten long coat with more pockets than he could count and carrying a walking stick that looked like it could double as a club.

His face was a craggy mass of scars- Harry was uncomfortably reminded of his own skin- with a flattened and mutilated-looking nose. One eye was dark and small, the other was obviously fake and even more obviously magical, given that it was bright, neon blue and it spun in its’ brass socket crazily, and his lips were thin enough to give his wide mouth the appearance of a bloodless wound. 

All in all, he cut a brutal and unyielding figure, and the dread that Harry had felt at the mere presence of wizards, which had started to subside as the days passed, returned with a vengeance. 

He stayed silent as the man stumped closer to him, looking like he was readying himself to reach out and yank him off the bed. Instead, he reached down, grabbed the frame of the bed closest to him, and dragged it across the ground without breaking stride until he was a foot away from Harry,

The man looked him over for a second, then abruptly sat down with a grunt, laying his walking stick across his knees.

“You’re afraid of me,” he said without preamble.

Harry tried to splutter out a response, but the man beat him to it.

“Good.”

Harry blinked, then closed his mouth. For a moment he wasn’t sure if the man meant that, but the pleased quirk of his lips told him that he probably did and that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Still, Harry stayed quiet.

“I’m Alastor Moody, I’m an Auror, been working for the department for...20 years or so by now. Bones sent me to look in on you, they wanted to know what I thought and, honestly, I wanted to get the measure of you myself.”

Harry nodded shakily, trying his best to keep as still as he could. He wasn’t sure if Moody’s magic eye could detect fear, but he didn’t want to give anything away.

“Aside from all that, Madam Bones asked me to oversee your physical therapy, as I have some-” here he interrupted himself to rap his knuckles on his left leg, which only now registered to Harry as a prosthetic, “experience with the subject. ‘Course I have the one leg all gone, and the eye, but they figured it was close enough...that and I’m considered one of the best in the department, although not in those words exactly.”

Here he leaned in and it took all of Harry’s concentration to not flinch, “They want me to help you, but I’m a busy man, I don’t have time for people who’ll half-arse things and give up, so I need to know: Are you gonna do either of those things?”

Harry almost wanted to laugh despite the fear pulling at his stomach, _What kind of question was_ that _? Does this Moody person think I have a choice? That’s stupid, of course, I’m gonna see this through, so I can go home!_

He shook his head, “I won’t give up o-or half...butt it.”

Moody regarded him for a moment, a brow raised before his serious frown dissolved into a pleased smirk.

“Attaboy!” he chuckled, sitting back, “Mild words, but there’s some fire behind those eyes of yours. I’m surprised you didn’t inherit Lily’s temper to go with those eyes, though, she’d have sent me packing if I asked her a question like that!”

Harry nodded along as Moody began to talk about Lily. There was a great fondness in his tone when he talked about her, and some of the hardness in his face softened a little as he spoke of her, though there was also sadness.

_She must’ve been his wife._ Harry thought, _And she must have died. They must've made a really weird couple, but I guess I can see it, they sounded like they were happy, way happier than Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia._

“-was a great duelist, took down some of the best Death Eaters Voldemort had, did anyone ever tell you about how she and your dad fought off Fenrir Greyback during a full moon?”

Harry’s felt time stop. 

_What did he mean? Is this a trick? Did Lily know my dad? Did Moody? Or..._

It wasn’t a new thought that rose up from the depths of his mind. More like a suggestion, one that he’d been trying to force out of his head, to not even think about thinking about, Nott’s words to him before the attack, the way Croaker and Bones looked at him, the ward all to himself, the freaky stuff he’d done, the stuff that, no matter how often he tried, he couldn’t find a logical reason behind, and now Moody’s question.

Harry felt his guts go leaden.

_No, no, no, no. I don‘t wanna think about it. My parents died in a car crash, they were drunk, they left me with the Dursleys, so they couldn’t have been good, but they weren’t like...that, they weren’t like me._

_They didn’t know these people. They weren’t like these people._

“Potter.”

The word was said so neutrally that he might’ve been reading from a phone book, but Harry flinched nonetheless, there was a strange look in Moody’s eye now, something piercing.

“Something the matter?”

Harry stared, brows furrowed, “I...no, sir, I-”

“Do you know who Lily was?”

“Was she...your wife?”

Moody’s eye narrowed and Harry felt as if the room had grown colder.

“Do you know anything about James?”

Harry shook his head, “No, sir.”

Quick as a hornet stinging Moody’s wand was out, and before he could even so much as twitch it was brushing his fringe aside, baring the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.

Moody muttered several words under his breath and Harry winced as something cold crept up his scalp. Moody stared at him for another moment, then he drew back, holstered his wand, and asked, “Do you know anything about your parents?”

“No!” Harry said, “They were drunks and they died in a car crash, th-that’s all I know, okay!”

It was louder than he meant it, and he could feel his voice becoming thick, it frustrated him, he didn’t like to cry and he had tried too hard to be courteous to the wizards, but he was scared and upset, and the implications of what he was hearing were making it all the harder to ignore the idea- no, the knowledge- that a very unpleasant truth was cresting the horizon.

Moody, for his part, stiffened like he’d touched a telephone line.

“A car crash?” he asked, incredulously, “A car crash!?”

Harry’s eyes darted towards the door, could he make it in time? He looked down at Moody’s false leg, did he want to risk the pain that trying to kick it out from under him would cause, or was the leg enchanted against an attack like that? 

“Calm down, boy. I’m not angry at you, and don’t bother trying for the door, even if you take me by surprise I can have it locked from across the room.”

Harry’s gaze whipped up. Anger and fear roiling inside him. Moody was looking at him, his chest rising and falling as he took a deep breath and relaxed his clenched fists.

“How’d you know?” He asked because there was no point in denying it if Moody was that smart or that magic or both.

“Your whole body tensed up and your eyes went to my leg.” he replied, straightforwardly, “It’s good that you have those instincts, but you need to hone them- “ he raised a thumb and forefinger, “- just a little more. I’m gonna sit back down now, I won’t pull a wand on you if you don’t try anything, this day’s just gotten a lot worse for me.”

Harry swallowed and kept still as Moody sat back down with a grunt. The two stared at each other.

“So those...Dursley people didn’t tell you anything, eh?”

“No, sir.”

“Have strange things ever happened around you?”

Harry nodded, knowing what was coming, and dreading it more and more by the second.

“And you never questioned this? Never asked yourself what it all meant?”

Hearing the accusatory tone Harry ducked his head, “I...did...for a while, but A- I mean I didn’t really like to think about it.” He looked up at Moody, remembering a cupboard that sometimes had a lock on it and counting his guardians’ teeth as they screamed at him, “I just want to be normal.”

Moody sighed deeply and brought a hand to his eyes, rubbing the closed lids. 

“I’m sorry to have to say it, but you can’t run from this.”

Harry shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. 

Moody considered him for a moment, face dour, lips pursed tight, then he began to speak, and when he was done Harry felt like the world had fallen away beneath him.

He was a wizard, that much he’d known, even if he’d been trying to run from that truth ever since he’d woken up at St. Mungos, but it was even worse than that. He was descended from wizards, including his parents, parents who had been freedom fighters against some lunatic and his death cult, and they’d been murdered in their own home on Halloween night by someone who tried to kill him, too.

And he was famous for it, The-Boy-Who-Lived. He honestly thought Nott’s version was closer to the truth. It made his heart ache to think about it.

_They never told me their names. James. Lily. They were good people, they_ loved _me, they died trying to save me, and Petunia never even told me their names!_

Something was building in his chest, something like the deep inhalation before a scream, but deeper, past the confines of his lungs. He felt something prickling under his skin, like little ants marching along the paths of his veins.

_They hit me, yelled at me, starved me, made fun of me, lied to everyone I ever tried to speak to, all because of this. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know, but SHE knew, she knew all along, so why’d she hurt me?_

His eyes burned. Shame, anxiety, anger, and helplessness swirled in his skull. There was an incessant hum in his ears, punctuated by a muffled exclamation the source of which he couldn’t determine; Even sitting down it felt like everything was spinning.

_What’ll happen to me now? They won’t let me go, that much is true, I’m like_ them _, it’s IN me. I can feel it, I need to get it out, have it gone, I want it gone, I want it gone now!_

He cradled his head in his hands, his skin was feverish under his fingers. There was so much pressure everywhere, he felt like he was about to burst. He staggered upright, stayed there for a moment, then his legs gave out and he crashed to the ground, retching.

The air shimmered as the pressure released all at once, he couldn’t see it from where he was crouched, but he felt it like a tension had been released that had gone deeper than flesh and bone. 

He didn’t see the wards in the room flare into bright visibility for a split second as his magic battered against it; he didn’t see the glass cabinets explode into jagged shards which were then reduced to little whirlwinds of sand or the look of grim pity on Moody’s haggard face.

He didn’t hear Moody shout his name, and he didn’t hear the spell that knocked him out a moment later.

***

It was dark when Minvera McGonagall strode into the corridor to the Headmaster’s office. Dark and mercifully quiet, with only the soft shushing of her robe on the stone and the clack of her heels to keep her company.

_It always seems quieter the week before the semester starts._ She mused as she walked on, _It’s like the castle is as tense as I am._

She’d been deputy headmistress, teacher and head of Gryffindor for 33 years. 33 years vanishing messes, soothing worries, fending off the Ministry’s lapdogs and putting up with Severus Snape. She considered herself fairly well put-together for all that, but the days leading up to the arrival of the newest batch of students always left her jittery.

This year was particularly worrisome, she’d heard what had happened to Harry Potter, it had nearly rendered her catatonic for an afternoon and given her some particularly nasty nightmares after. 

Those nightmares had kept her from even attempting to sleep the night previous. And now she was regretting not trying. She was getting jumpy, and the memories of her dreams wouldn’t leave her be.

It all made her feel like she was in her thirties again, watching the war escalate, looking at her cubs every day and wondering if they’d all make it to graduation or if they’d leave her sight and never come back. 

She remembered paying special attention to the muggleborns, comforting them when the Daily Prophet revealed some new act designed to let them know that they weren’t wanted, and tensing every time she spotted a Slytherin student near one of hers’.

_It’s like the war never ended._

It was an awful thought, and one that tugged at her spirits. If she dwelled on this thought, then she’d spiral, that was why she was visiting Dumbledore.

It had been a ritual of theirs since her first year as a teacher and, even after all this time it was one she still observed: She’d go up and sit with Albus by the fireplace and the two would simply sit and eat. They’d rarely talk, they’d just fill their stomachs with simple foods and enjoy each others’ company.

Sometimes, very rarely, something in her chest would draw together, the room would start to shrink, and she’d be left shaking and gasping, and when that happened Albus’s gentle hand on her shoulder meant the world to her. And sometimes Albus' eyes would grow glassy, and he'd stare off into the distance, his hands twitching, and Minerva would call him back with the same tone she used on her cubs when they came to her in tears.

Tonight didn’t feel like one of those nights, but it didn’t feel like it would end up being a pleasant visit, either. There was just too much in her head, and she was tired and frustrated with herself and the world.

_Hopefully this isn’t one of those nights._ She thought as she came to the gargoyle. 

“Charleston Chew.” she said, and the statue moved aside to let her pass.

As she ascended the stairs to the Headmaster’s door, her mind was still on her worries, and as such she didn’t notice the voices in the room until they had gone silent at her knock.

She waited a moment, processing the fact that she had most likely interrupted a meeting and wondering how she could leave without making a scene when the door opened.

Albus was seated by the fireplace looking pensive and worried, much to McGonagall’s unease. Opposite him was someone that she had never seen before, a woman whose pale skin and inky black hair were made all the more striking by the light purple dress she wore, a dress that looked old-fashioned even by wizarding standards.

“Hello, Minerva.” said Albus with a small smile, “I must admit that I had forgotten about our usual appointment, but I believe the countess was about to depart, is that right?”

The woman nodded, “Indeed. You have given me much to think about, Albus, I will send word if I find anything, though I would not get your hopes up, your enemy has become something I doubt many of my kind have ever even thought about.”

Dumbledore sighed, “Tom always was unique, often in the worst ways possible.” he rose to his feet and shook hands with her, “It’s always a pleasure Countess Moirai, and I thank you for the ideas you've come up with, I think Hogwarts will allow the creation of some new wards."

Countess Moirai nodded with a close-lipped smile, “I am glad to have been of service. See that you get some rest, you look like you need it. Goodbye.”

With a quick bow she glided over to the fireplace, took a pinch of floo powder between two thin fingers and was gone in a flash.

Albus sighed and leaned back, steepling his fingers together and closing his eyes.

“I’m sorry for intruding.” said McGonagall, “I didn’t know-”

“It’s quite alright, Minerva.” said Albus with a dismissive wave, “The Countess and I are old friends, she and I were having a discussion about Voldemort’s and his...current state.”

McGonagall looked to where Moirai had been sitting, “I didn’t know you were friends with a vampire.”

Dumbledore nodded, his eyes regaining some of their twinkle. “It’s amazing the kinds of friends you make whilst curse breaking.”

McGonagall nodded, “I don’t suppose you’re too tired to tell me about what you two were talking about?”

Albus chuckled softly, “Tomorrow, I promise. If it's all the same to you, I intend to take the Countess' advice."

Minerva smiled, “I can have Poppy bring up some Dreamless Sleep if you’d like.”

“I have some of my own, Minerva, no need to wake anybody.” He said simply, then he looked at her over the tops of his spectacles, regarding her with concern, “I am more than willing to share, if you’ll accept.”

Minerva nodded. After they had downed their portions, Dumbledore escorted his long-time friend back to her chambers and left her with a promise to explain what was happening the next day, alongside the rest of the staff.

They all had extra preparations to make.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, not too much to say right now, other than "Please let me know if you spotted an error, this hasn't been Beta'd or Britpicked."


End file.
